My feet, of their own will, led me along the path to the bottom of the ravine. The image of Ernst Nooteboom and those rusty stains on a white shroud rose before me.
Curious, I walked the perimeter of the ravine, looking. After a half hour I found itâa spot where the ancient flat stones had been jarred loose by an impact, and marred by a rusty splatter of blood. The place where Ernst Nooteboom had died. The ravine no longer seemed quite so beautiful. I lifted my eyes from that dread disassembly of stained stones and tried to find evidence of his fall in the side of the ravine. It was there, a trail of broken ferns and smoothed dirt where a body had alternately fallen through air and tumbled down cliffside. I marked the spot in my memory, planning to explore the top of the cliff for the origins of Ernst Nooteboom's fall. Tomorrow, I told myself. It was close to suppertime, and Abba would need help.
CHAPTER FIVE
A Woodland Encounter
WAKING UP FROM a dream in which Ernst Nooteboom was carried past on his pall and the bottom of his shoes shone as smooth as glass, I rose even earlier than usual and took the mountain path up the ravine.
The path was wet and treacherous, and the bubbling brook was a frothy brown from night rains. It was a long, difficult hike over tempestuous terrain, and I was puffing and muddied from several falls by the time I reached the top.
How close the sky seemed at that place, though. The pines were tall and looked as old as Eden. Birds sang with a wilder note, and the world of teapots and parlors and the rules of etiquette seemed very far away.
The search for the place from which I estimated Ernst Nooteboom had fallen to his death took an hour, and when I found it I had to lie flat on the ground to peer over the cliff, down past the stony gray wall where pale green ferns clung, to the place where a rusty bloodstain marked a death.
There was no indication that a man, or two men, had been here two days before, and that a mortal accident had occurred. No indication except . . . and there it was, fluttering in the breeze, caught on a bramble. A piece of paper.
I rose cautiously to my feet and moved away from the edge of the ravine, toward that single inkling of man's intrusion into this wilderness.
When it was in my hand I sighed. A shopping list, pencil on brown paper. Eggs. White silk thread. A half pound of potatoes.
It could mean nothing, but it did seem to be the same paper with which Mr. Tupper wrapped his parcels.
The forest grew thicker just before this spot, with clumps of trees so dense they were like green curtains. I walked for another ten minutes or so and was soon swallowed by the shade of the ancient trees. I could have been in a fairy tale. Chipmunks darted through the leaves, unafraid, and squirrels chattered from the boughs. A doe and her fawn froze before me for a lovely moment before bounding away. Mankind and its institutions seemed far away. In fact, I seemed closer to the elf land of my childhood imaginings.
Then and there was born my next book,
Christmas Elves
, a children's collection I could time for profitable Christmas sales. I would begin it even as I was finishing my short story “The Lady and the Woman.” It would be a far cry from the “blood and thunders” I published anonymously. How wondrous is the imagination, that it can beget faithless husbands, mad brides, and benign fairies, all from the same material of life!
As I walked, I became totally absorbed in this next writing project, thinking of names and plots and settings, almost unaware of the beautiful forest around me, when I heard a man's voice singing at the top of his lungs, and his song was not a church hymn. In fact, the lyrics would have made a sailor blush.
Curious, I walked toward that voice, mindless that I was alone and approaching a stranger who, judging from the diction of his chosen lyrics, drank stronger stuff than coffee at breakfast.
There was a smoldering campfire, a leaning tent, a rope clothesline with leaf-littered blankets and crumpled shirts airing on it, tin pots glinting in the sun. The pristine forest had acquired a tenement. I crouched behind a tree, spying.
The camping baritone was tall and thin, with slightly rounded shoulders and a scarecrow look to him. He was about twenty-five years of age, I estimated, with black hair and green eyes. He could have been of pleasant appearance, had he been groomed and sober. Instead his suspenders dangled about his knees and his white shirttail flooded over his waist. His trousers were grimy with dirt; his dark hair stood on end, and seeds and bristles punctuated his side whiskers. His face was red from drink.
Common sense told me to turn and leave. Curiosity bade me stay. Was he a tramp, out living rough like this? His soiled clothes appeared to be newly and expensively made, with velvet trim and brass buttons.
I watched from behind the tree, fascinated. After a minute he ceased his bawdy song and crouched before his fire. He commenced to run his fingers through his already severely disarranged hair, and I thought I heard sobs.
“Poor old sod,” he muttered. “Poor old thing. I never thought that's where . . .”
I couldn't quite catch the last part of that mumbled sentence. I leaned forward, and a twig broke under my foot.
He was not as inebriated as I had first surmised.
“Who's there?” he shouted, rising to his feet. “Stand and show yourself!” He grabbed his gnarled black walking stick and brandished it in my direction.
I stepped out from behind my tree.
“I do beg your pardon,” I said, smiling in what I hoped was the soothing and nonthreatening manner appropriate for addressing a madman. “I was out for a walk and . . .”
His crazed glare stopped the words in my mouth. He stared as though I were a ghost or woodland elf.
I remembered I was dressed in boy's clothing, and that in the humid warmth of the morning I had rolled up the sleeves of my sweater and my trouser legs, and both arms and legs were now bare before this stranger. Worse, a bough had removed my cap, and my hair tumbled down my back. My hair was chestnut-colored, and there was a considerable quantity of it.
“Are you a fairy?” he asked in slurred amazement.
“That I am not,” I said, pulling down my sweater sleeves and knotting up my hair. “I am Miss Louisa Alcott, a visitor here in Walpole.”
“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked suspiciously. “Are you in disguise? Are you here to cause more harm? Did she send for you?” He tilted his body to look at me, and I feared he would tilt himself right over into a fall. Yet I dared not approach to steady him.
“I run,” I said, puzzled by his barrage of questions and determined to memorize them exactly as he had said them, since there seemed to be some purport in his phrases that needed sorting out. Instead of answering those strange questions, I stalled with one of my own: “Why are you camped in the woods?”
He sat down now, and put his chin in his hands.
“To discover fossils. And to get away from them,” he said. I understood from his voice that he fled some group of people, not petrified remains. He looked up wildly. “I can say no more.” He began to weep! “Go away,” he sobbed, raising his fists.
I fled. Gentle reader, be assured I did not flee so quickly that I did not first ascertain one fact: This camp spot was not far from the edge of the cliff from which Mr. Nooteboom pitched to his death. I had come by a longer path, but ended up very close to that same place.
Â
Â
I DID NOT speak of this encounter to Abba or Father or Sylvia. Something stayed my tongue. I believe I wished to make sense of that strange encounter, to discover its meaning, and so I let it simmer in my imagination. I returned home to discover Abba singing happily in the kitchen, and enjoyed such a flush of creative energy that I went straight to my writing shed and began my elf stories, though strange worries about the death of Ernst Nooteboom fluttered through my thoughts. I spent most of the day writing, mindless of all else. Abba, my inspiration, left a tray outside my door and kept all others away.
“May I read it, once it is done?” she asked with maternal eagerness.
“I ask no greater honor than to place it in your hands,” I said. In my younger days, Abba read everything I wrote. Well, almost everything. There was the issue of those lurid “blood and thunders” that I wrote for the money they brought. They were not Louisa May Alcott's work but the sins of some personage known as Anonymous and sometimes Flora Fair-field.
I emerged from my shed feeling slightly feverish, and when Abba announced we were to visit Eliza the next afternoon I almost decided to stay alone at home to rest.
Something bade me go, some instinct for discovery. It had occurred to me that Walpole was missing several young men: Ernst, who had died; Jonah Tupper, who was traveling; and Ida's son, Clarence, who likewise was said to be traveling. Such a strange coincidence!
At Eliza's the next day, I asked Idaâfor of course Ida, in all her flounced glory, was in attendanceâif she had heard from her traveling husband.
She trembled and sighed.
“It is unfair,” she declared, gazing sadly out the window, “the things a wife must put up with. Don't you find marriage to be frightfully unfair, Abba?”
Abba, who had finished an entire sock in the length of time it took Ida to cast on one ragged row, shook her head.
“Not at all,” said that staunch mother. “I can't imagine life without my family about me.”
“But that's exactly what I mean!” wailed Ida. “Jonah is gone ever so long. I do worry.”
At that precise moment Eliza and Mrs. Fisher came in with a tray of glasses and lemonade, followed by Uncle Benjamin. The day was breezeless and humid, and we were prostrated by a heat that pressed heavily upon us with invisible hands. It took a great force of will, I recall, simply to fan oneself.
“He's a rascal, that young husband of yours,” Uncle said, giving Ida a little peck on the cheek.
“Isn't Benjamin an old sweetie?” Ida cooed, and gave a coquettish twist to her fan by using it to hide her face, except for her eyes and brows. Eliza coughed gently and caught Abba's eye.
Benjamin, dressed in his famous red cap and embroidered slippers and cape, eased himself onto the settee opposite Abba. These two were great friends, despite the long periods between visits, despite Benjamin's eccentricities. He had married her beloved sister and there was a connection between them that had grown even stronger after that sister's death. They shared memories no one else had, and there is no bond tighter than that.
“Here, old sweetie,” teased Eliza, handing her father a glass of lemonade. We all settled back into our chairs and listened for a while to the drone of insects, wishing with all our hearts for a breeze to stir the curtains and lift the heat. How I longed for the simple tunics Abba had dressed us in as children, so that I might be free of the layers of muslin, the chemise, drawers, crinoline, bodice, skirts, etc., etc., that encumbered a woman in the name of modesty in those days. I always suspected they were simply trying to weigh us down to prevent a mass escape of females.
From somewhere upstairs, a child began to wail, and then there was the rhythmic sound of a rubber ball being bounced against a wall.
Eliza ignored both and sipped her iced lemonade. “I paid my respects to Lilli Nooteboom this morning,” she said. “Such a tragedy.”
“I feel quite faint,” said Ida. She took a silver bottle from her reticule. “Medicine,” she said. She poured a capful into her lemonade, and the Saturday-night smell of gin filled the room. Abba's right eyebrow cocked up.
Mrs. Fisher, the housekeeper, came in carrying a plate of sliced melon and making a show of how hard she was working. The glance she gave Ida Tupper was not warm.
“It is a sad event when a young woman has an ocean between herself and home and her brother dies, leaving her alone in a foreign country,” said Uncle Benjamin, oblivious to the unvoiced female judgments that made the heavy atmosphere even heavier. “Careless of young Nooteboom to fall like that. Mrs. Tupper, may I have a spoonful of that medicine of yours?”
Eliza opened her mouth to say something, but then shut it firmly. Abba frowned. It was no secret that Uncle Benjamin was fond of what he termed “something stronger than water.”
“Oh, dear,” said Ida, making a face like a child who has smashed a plate, cute and guilty at the same time. “My medicine has introduced a note of discord.”
“Nonsense,” said Uncle. He held out his cup, and Ida poured.
“As I was saying, we visited poor Lilli Nooteboom,” Eliza began again. “Now she is alone. Although solitude would not be such an awful thing. No children, no husband or parents . . .” Her voice trailed off and her eyes grew dreamy.
“Miss Nooteboom is a young person of an argumentative nature,” said Uncle Benjamin, shaking his head. “She's not made many friends in Walpole. A tragedy for her, though. Now she'll have to stay in rented rooms instead of living in that house he had talked about building for them. A tragedy.”
“Fate is mysterious, isn't it, Louisa?” Eliza asked, breaking out of her reverie. “Perhaps Mr. Nooteboom was meant to live in the lowlands, and height destroyed him. I'm sure there is a metaphor in there somewhere.”
Uncle laughed. “ âNot all is contained in your philosophies,' ” he said. “That is from
Hamlet
, is it not?”
“But Louisa,” Eliza said, “the strangest thing. As we were leaving Mrs. Roder's hall, that old Dr. Burroughs was entering. I hadn't thought he and Miss Nooteboom were on speaking terms, since there had been some quarrel between Ernst and the doctor.”
“I believe I heard thunder in the distance,” said Father, who had been drinking his lemonade in preoccupied silence.